Lightning Print Offers Cambridge Titles on Demand

by Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 2/15/1999

Cambridge University Press has joined with Ingram Book Company's Lightning Print to make available a selection of its titles on demand.

CUP will initially offer 113 titles through Lightning Print's digital library. Another 500 CUP titles will be added during the first half of the year. On demand titles offered will reflect the range of CUP's academic disciplines from history to the humanities, music and science.

Michael Holdsworth, CUP business development director, told PW that the agreement represented "the best entrepreneurial use of digital technology." He noted that the press has selected "recently discontinued" titles that are still receiving customer orders. "Our system keeps unfulfilled orders on file, like back orders," said Holdsworth. "They are our best measure of continuing demand." Holdsworth observed that these titles are essentially "being revived or reissued," rather than being allowed to go out of print. He also noted that CUP is now faced with "the question as to how we re-alert bookstores and potential buyers to their renewed existence."

According to Larry Brewster, general manager of Lightning Print, this latest agreement brings its digital library to a total of 1800 titles. "Since October, we've had a fourfold increase in titles and in books ordered each day," said Brewster. All LP titles can be ordered through bookstores and online booksellers. Brewster also told PW that "other deals are in the works with more university presses and with trade houses."